About

Fierce Cork Woman is British-Irish, in her 40s, married with two children. She has a degree and PhD in a hard science and has at various times been a research scientist, writer, teacher and educational consultant.

Her mother-in-law (MIL hereafter) has narcissistic personality disorder and her husband is in the early stages of coming to terms with his mother’s dysfunctional behaviour and its impact on the family.

FCW is in contact with a community of similar people via the web and has gleaned much useful information, many tips and insights in her years of dealing with MIL and is blogging this here to help herself make sense of it all and to help others in similar situations.

FCW is not a professional psychotherapist and cannot give individual advice to anyone.

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114 responses to “About”

Dear Fierce Cork Woman,
Do you happen to have words of wisdom regarding counseling for married couples. It appears that when a spouse is the child of a narcissistic mother they too have those tendencies of narcissism in varying degrees. The years of “stuff” over the years is hard to move past especially since narcissists don’t care to apologize or see there ways or lack of empathy. If one’s narcotic spouse does apologize it seems not from the heart, in word only, so that they can appease you. Does this make sense? How are people muddling through? I also notice that their words and actions don’t match up. For example, they say they love you, etc. etc. and yet when you ask for them to cut their shower short because you are always left with cold water every morning,they sort of laugh and never oblige the request. They sing your praises when people are looking then won’t back you up around disciplining the kids, wanting to be the children’s friend or even undermining you in front of the children. It’s all so very confusing.

Hi, i just found your blog and find it interesting. My MIL is definitely a narcissist and i still can’t figure out if her family are her victims or also the same. She broke her daughters marriage within a month of getting married and financially benefitted. Our marriage she broke in 2 years with a one year old. Its been 3 years and we are still going through a custody battle. The lies and distorted truth that come up with makes my head spin. It just seems everything this woman says her family eats up and goes with it. Example my daughter enjoyed a cartoon and she somehow managed to convince her family that i was alienating her from her father just because a one year old cried that she wanted to watch backyardigans. This woman is so sick that i was crying on the floor begging my husband not to leave and she was laughing like seriously laughing!!!

That sound horrible. I am sorry you are still enmeshed in this family and can’t break free from them. Anyone who laughs at another person’s distress is mentally ill and/or morally damaged.

Just a thought, I was wondering why are you still referring to her as your MIL if you are divorced? Why is she still in your life and why do you need to understand how the wider family are affected? I would get the hell out and stay out if I were you and count yourself lucky you haven’t had to spend more years in her messed up family. I may be misunderstanding your comment, it could be that you aren’t legally divorced until the custody situation is resolved but it seemed odd you said your marriage was over then talk about MIL, husband and trying to understand the family. Have you got yourself safely away from them or are you getting dragged back into their (not your) drama?

FCW, I hope you don’t mind if I interject here. I am sure you will give some wise words but I would like to share my experience.

Dear Anonymous,
I had huge hopes that I would be able to break through this thing called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have know about NPD since December 2013, prior to a new round of marriage counselling with a clinical psychologist. He introduced me to the concept.

I have no doubt that my MIL has an NPD.

I also have no doubt that my now estranged wife has NPD. plus other Cluster B traits.

I ignored a friend of mine who is also a psychologist who specialises in PDs when she told me to ‘Run for the Hills’.

My experience is that my wife got worse. I bent over backwards in the counselling to be the best partner I could be and in the end it broke me. I ended up with depression, at times I hit the drink. I think if you truly suspect that your spouse has a PD or traits, then do what I did not do (or I was too scared to admit it). Go see a lawyer and start planning. Get a lawyer that understands PDs.

I did not do this – she got in first and has employed every dirty tactic possible. Your description sounds similar to mine. This resonated: won’t back you up around disciplining the kids, wanting to be the children’s friend or even undermining you in front of the children.

Oh yes how I have experienced that so many times. You know they do it because they are actually children themselves… Part of them never grew up.

For me, on breakup the NMIL was there right from the start relishing in she had achieved her ultimate goal. They painted me to be a monster which is so far from the truth.

These people are sick and very dangerous. They don’t have any remorse for their lies and duplicity.

I have read nearly every book on the subject of Cluster B PDs, all that did was allow me to recognise the patterns and behaviours and stop taking things personally, but it didn’t help.

I have also spent a heap of money on counselling, but at the end of the day the inevitable happened. Now I have an absolute shit fight to try to keep what is dear and precious to me in light of lies, denial and false allegations.

Good luck. I’ll be thinking of you. Keep posting, this is a good site. No doubt Alabaster might post a response to you – she is also really clued up about NPD as well.

I too am in this situation after 25 years together, my husband has metaphorically run back to mummy and is blaming me for everything. I suspect he shows some NPD, but his mum is the originator – and has already been very manipulative with the grandchildren – especially favouritism for the eldest – as your post describes. I am at my wits end, because he left us and needs to ‘find himself’ . I believe him, as I think he has got to the point in his life he really does not know who he is and what feelings he has or not. at this point ‘mother’ is still manipulating and buying him everything he needs for his new life without me and literally telling him what to do and how to deal with me – I can tell his words are not primarily coming from him. She split up his sisters marriage also, and now ours. it is so frustrating as he is in complete defence of his parents – especially mother and believes I am completely wrong about her even though we have had some crazy intrusion by her towards our eldest son in particular. I would really like some help with this as it seems you have done a lot of research around this and I am in the immediate aftermath of relationship breakdown not knowing how it will work out.

Mid-life can throw anyone off balance as the energy and direction of your life moves from getting laid, married, having kids to “what the Hell is this all about?” and “Oh God I may never do that thing I really need to do”. Hence people try to find themselves, an important task I might add. This is to be expected if your mother has controlled your life because your life has never really been yours. That is where your husband is. He has broken your marriage but not actually managed to break free from the one relationship that would actually give him the freedom he so desperately wants to find. He will blame you as it is psychologically so much safer than blaming her. He is still running from facing that demon. If he is disorientated, upset, depressed then he is going to be easy for her to manipulate.

If you are still talking to him I would firstly make sure you strongly and robustly reject any attempt he makes at labelling you the problem, “No I am NOT like that, you know who is? Your mother” he can only continue projecting onto you as long as you will let it stick. Do you want to try and repair things with him or to cleanly split? I am not a therapist or relationship counsellor so I cannot advise you on any legal or personal matters. You need to protect yourself, your assets and your children. Taking on someone’s abusive projection of you being the problem, your behaviour and character being at fault is bad for your mental health.

It is at the point where you must be brutally clear and honest. If you want to try any repairing I would tell him, without her around, every single thing wrong with her, every example, hand him over printed out articles about narcissistic mothers, give him a copy of “When he is married to Mom” by Kenneth Adams and lay it out on the line. Have friends and other family who have witnessed her behaviour with you if possible. He has to break from the hold his mother has upon him or he will never be free or his own person ever. Maybe no one has ever told him that. Bear in mind that after 25 years living with you he is still that completely under her control. This does not bode well. Nothing short of him spending years disentangling himself in therapy is going to fix this. I am so sorry.

Two years ago a psychologist told me to get out and run for the hills. She was right… I cannot begin to describe what I am now going through. False allegations, baiting, the grandiosity, pathologically lies and selfcentredness. This is all on public record as it is going through the court. I can disprove much of it. They carry on as if they are not doing anything wrong. Their smugness is disturbing. And what is sad is that the are the mother and grandmother of my kids… To this day I never would have believed NPD…

Steph, there is a lot of resource on the web. Melanie Tonia Evans is a surviver of NPD abuse and has lots to offer. EFT (tapping is a good release) Emotional freedom technique. I am yet to experience really good psychological help. I have a good psychologist but I think I actually have more knowledge of Cluster B. The worst think is you have lived in a lie, and that is hard to come to terms with.

I am sorry to say that at some point you might need to realise that this person never really loved you. Its nothing against you. They just don’t know how to love and lack the ability to love. I had an amazing sex life, but if I wanted a hug or a cuddle I was dismissed or there was an excuse… There are a few of us that regularly use this site, keep posting. you are amongst friends. My friends and my psychologist describe my ex’s lies as being enough rope, but I am kinda heartbroken because I invested so much into our lives, I slept in the same bed for years and she is the mother of my kids and has no remorse for her behavior. Thats the hardest to deal with and it brings me to tears every time…

So glad I found this blog…. Never really had a word to describe my MIL until my SIL (her own daughter) told me that her therapist gave her literature to read about being raised by a narcissist. Then it was like a light bulb! Things have gotten much worse since my lovely, patient FIL passed in nearly 2 years ago. Time to settle down and read some more!

Dear Fierce Cork Woman, thank you so much for your words of wisdom. Finding this website has been the best thing that has happened to me for a long time. I am in a similar situation, except we don’t have kids and are not married despite having been together for a long time, about 10 years. And, yes, I suspect my partner’s mother has a lot to do with us not being married and not having kids. We are currently in therapy and I hope things would get better.
It makes me really said, the way my partner’s mom has been treating both him and his sister. He has turned out better, as he is the Golden Child, but the sister is a complete wreck and at 28 she is still unable to stand up to her mother and, what is more, she is constantly striving towards failure so as to reinforce the idea that has been put into her head – that she is good for nothing.
What is more, my partner’s mom did nothing when her husband fell ill – he was an alcoholic for years and ultimately passed away from liver failure. A year or so before they tried to put him in hospital for treatment – all the time she whined she was left alone at home, what would the neighbours say if they found out he was alcoholic (seriously?!) and even secretly brought him a bottle of vodka to the hospital (I mean, really…). The kids – my partner and his sister, literally did nothing, because, you know, mommy said…
Now she is playing the role of the lonely, abandoned woman and my partner feels bad and responsible, which is starting to affect our relationship big time.
My partner is a really great guy and I love him but I am running out of patience and out of time. 😦 If therapy does not help soon… I am mentally preparing myself for the scenario where I would have to leave and let him be with mommy…

Hello – thank you so much for writing this intelligent, practical and detailed blog. It’s easily the most helpful thing I’ve read re my situation and is really helping me to understand how to deal with my narcissistic MIL. It also has made me feel not so alone with my situation (I was beginning to feel like I was going mad with it all as no friends or family can really understand it and at times she has done a good job in making me question if the problems in our relationship are my fault! )

I have a couple of simple queries re whether you have any tips for handling certain specific situations that I’d be so grateful to raise with you offline (I know SIL often looks at these websites) and just wondered if there was anyway of contacting you? Thanks again (you have saved my sanity!)

Hi Positive Thinking, I’m glad you’ve been able to find something useful here. There are lots of us in similar situations.

I am unable to offer any one-to-one advice beyond what people are willing to share with me and any readers through the comments section. Comments and replies here are more of a chat with like minded people and you are free to take or leave what advice or tips get posted there. I am not a certified relationship therapist of any sort and it would be unethical to offer advice to people in that guise. I can suggest some websites and forums where this sort of family problem is discussed. Out of the Fog is a website with a moderated chat forum for anyone dealing with a family member with a personality disorder http://outofthefog.website/ another commentor said she has found the Mumsnet UK thread “But we took you to stately homes!” in the Relationships section supportive and friendly, you could try there.

Your blog is an absolute lifesaver for me. My MIL is classic NPD (every single post of yours resonates with me) and, unfortunately, FIL is almost equally as bad.

Yesterday was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for me, when they blatantly disregarded a simple request and stormed out crying because they perceived me as being ungrateful and unfair. We have not talked to them since. My husband is still in denial, but he is much more aware and alert to it than he was even a few years ago.

They will try their classic tactics to re-engage us (complete with plenty of tears and pleas to be a “family”), but I am standing firm. This will no doubt cause waves with my husband and me, and it will no doubt cause issues with our youngest, the only of our three children who still views them with any affection. I am doing all I know to do to minimize the damage to him. I have made the conscious choice to cut all contact with them. How this will play out with the rest of the family, I don’t know, but I myself will no longer be engaging with them in any way, shape, or form.

20 years of damage to my mental health at the hands of their narcissistic ways, and years of witnessing them overtly favor (and groom) our youngest to the detriment of their relationships with the older two children, is enough. Thank you so much for speaking so authentically and intelligently about this issue. I have a feeling I will be a frequent visitor to your blog!

Your blog has really been a lifesaver! I also have a PhD in a hard science and so does my husband. But these 3 letters are useless when it comes to dealing with my MIL. I wish I had realized her toxicity when i first met her 9 years ago, but naive me, I thought her behavior would get better. Even after we got married, she kept telling me and my husband that these days people decide to “live separately after marriage”, “you don’t want to live on top of each other” etc. Still I convinced myself that she just didn’t like me because of [reasons I would make up] and that things would get better. And my husband agreed. Well, it didn’t get any better and in the meantime we had our first baby! Having this child has been an eye-opener for me. She went downright insane! Shortly after birth, she wanted to just TAKE and KEEP the baby. She started calling me “just a food source” for the baby, wanted to let the baby cry to that she could hold him, wouldn’t even let me change his diaper if he was crying because she wanted him to “sleep on her”. She wanted him to sleep on her and how could she not have it! I brought it up with my husband and after a series of unpleasant conversations with him, he agrees that she has a problem. We visit his parents once a month now for a few hours even though they live 20 mins away whereas we used to visit them twice a week in the baby’s first year. What horror that was! She tried to use her aging husband as an excuse to get us to visit them. He is a nice man except that he can’t stand up to his wife and is non-confrontational. I didn’t mind it before but now that it’s hurting the well-being of my baby, I find this avoidant behavior unacceptable. I have resolved that my baby will never be alone with her and end up becoming an emotionally damaged adult like she has done to my husband even though he will not accept it. He doesn’t believe that her behavior towards him is abusive at all. According to him, her main problem is that she can’t let go of her son.

Her new strategy to hurt us is to badmouth me to other family members. Recently, she kept mentioning in front of our uncle and aunt how I have all the say in our family. In front of them, she asked me if she could offer chocolate to my husband, and when I said that she could if she wanted to, she turned to the aunt and said “I have to ask”. During the same visit, she complained to these people that my husband “doesn’t tell her anything” as if she is his high school girl friend. Honestly, that was exactly the look and tone of her voice. No one said anything to that. When my husband called her on mothers day, she said that she thought he might not phone because her friend told her that after men get married they don’t think with their own brains.

Now another set of relatives that she visited recently have written to us to advise us that we should get our baby X citizenship (MIL is X) because it would be good for him and that MIL “casually mentioned” that we don’t want the baby to be an X citizen. What a load of BS! We have told our MIL several times that he is an X citizen, it’s just a matter of applying for a passport. She just wants to get us to do it asap for some reason I don’t understand.

Anyone got any suggestions about what to do in situations where (a) MIL makes snide remarks in your presence in front of other relatives in order to make you look bad, or (b) MIL visits other family members and lies about you? any directions or tips here would be very helpful.

Also, while discussing MIL’s pathology with my husband, I mentioned this blog and read a few paragraphs, his response in the end was “what do you want from me! I admit that she has a problem. we don’t visit them often, now what.” I think since I am still recovering from this revelation, all the past incidents come to mind where her craziness was clear and my husband didn’t do anything about it so I keep bringing it up. may be i shouldn’t.

Just putting in some of my thoughts, hope it will be helpful, even a little. Sorry to hear you’re dealing with something like this, can be very difficult and it’s understandable that you’re bothered by your MIL’s actions. I am also still in the early stages of coming to terms with having to go no-contact with the MIL, and as weird as it is… I backslide sometimes and feel like I should afford her more empathy. It does my head in.

a) About her making snide remarks and trying to frame you up to be someone you are not, you need to have more faith that people will know you for you, and if they don’t… do you really want to care? I am curious though, does she do this to just you, or other people as well? because if you are not the only one, it’s fair to assume others will see through her actions too 🙂

b) if she lies about you, the same applies. is this to her relatives or yours? you have to believe that people know you better than that and hope that they have the wisdom to judge things as they are. It’s really hard, but you have to pick your battles. If my experience is any indication, the MIL will put up many landmines and battles, need to pick em right.

My in laws have a very small family and She has managed to keep my husband away from the direct reach of everyone. She acts as a mediator for most conversations. Unfortunately she meets these relatives for several weeks every year when she visits her home country whereas we see them much less often. Basically, everyone in the family has spent very little time with me, maybe 0.1% of the amount they spend with her. And I think this is likely to continue because the family is scattered across the globe and it’s hard for us to visit everyone. So I don’t know how they’ll get to know me to verify the veracity of what she’s saying.

Thanks for writing the blog. Inspired me to finally start one of my own. Been thinking about it for some time and did not know where to go to vent… worried that not only it’s going to not solve the problem it might cause more. But here we are. Looking fwd to reading more.

Can I speak with you privately and see if you have suggestions on who I need to contact or which types of therapy I can get my kids into? I’m recently divorced and now my young children will be with their grandmother who, down to a T, is described by your article on grooming. I mean it’s so accurate that even the part about registering one of my children for dance classes without my permission or knowledge and then insisting on taking her and insisting on using her OWN dance clothing and changing my child in public restrooms, even her underwear. Now my son returns acting inappropriately after being around her.. My daughter is now secretive about her and even though I know they’ve been around the grandmother, she’s been programmed to tell me they were only with their father. Now that this woman will have unsupervised access to my children 6 days a week every other week, , especially my toddler boy alone while my daughter is in school. I’m terrified and don’t know what to do. Please help.

I’m sorry but I can’t offer the sort of advice you are looking for. I’m not qualified to and I don’t know which country you are in and what sorts of legal redress or psychological support may be available to you and your children.

What I can say is that you have more options and actions available to you than may be apparent at the moment. NPD abusers have a way of making everyone around them feel trapped and immobilised in their web. You aren’t. You are also the children’s main carer and no one can simply erase that. You job is to get them comfortable with this big change in their life. If you provide a warm and loving home without agonising over what is happening for 6 days a fortnight they will be permanently and securely attached to you.

If joint custody arrangements have been made through the court that gives your MIL childcare half the time you have to respect that. If the arrangement was your ex-partner has custody but they are using the grandmother for childcare you may have a legal option to request minimal contact with her but you will need solid evidence of neglect or abusive behaviour. Start keeping a diary and log incidents, there is a lot of online advice about how to do this.

If you have joint custody then what your ex does during that time (or his/her family with their permission) is up to them and that is the brutal reality of divorce. You don’t have a say if once a fortnight they wish to take your child to dance class anymore than you can dictate what they eat for breakfast or when they go to bed.

I would suggest you allow your situation to settle, you sound very anxious and being newly divorced your new circumstances and arrangements will take a while to normalise. There could be other reasons for your children’s behaviour changes (like seeing their parents split). Talk to your daughter’s school teacher and explain as calmly as you can your concerns about her grandmother and ask the teacher to keep an eye out. Be as matter of fact as you can and refrain from sensationalism when describing her behaviour. As you described, mention increased secrecy and your suspicions that they are being encouraged to lie. Mention the phrase “emotionally abusive” and that the grandmother has difficulty with respecting boundaries. Teachers are trained to pick up on certain behaviours indicative of abuse. The secrecy and lying bit is actually far more concerning than her having new dance clothes or grandma taking them to class.

Hi Fierce Cork Woman,
Thank you for your blog. I am currently in a 5 year marriage of a 10 year relationship with an 18 month old. My MIL is divorced over 10 years but still cannot stop bashing on my FIL. He cheated, yes. But they have been living upstairs/downstairs for 20 years before that.

My MIL uses food to bully people on the dinner table. If you don’t finish her food, don’t ask her for recipes, don’t constantly praise her cooking, then you will get grilled about why you don’t like that dish. She only talks about herself her friends and her numerous boyfriends. Her current boyfriend is only a few years older than my BIL.

She disapproved us getting married but want to make sure she picked the venue for our reception. I used some excuse of some student visa issues at that time to avoid to involve her in that whole thing. His original family was not invited to our small beach wedding. (Can you imagine that she would plan to use that event to confront her ex and his girlfriend?) And I basically have no contact with her for 3 years while my husband still call her to listen to her story every Sunday. We still haven’t let baby meet with his family yet because he says that I cannot exclude his mom.

I found your blog when this blowed up a month ago. I read through each post, despite different country different income level (his family loves shopping at thrift stores and bashing at the rich), your description on the MIL and the family interactions is just like my own situation. We are seeing a couple therapy but after 4 sessions my husband ignored the part that the therapist directly says that his mom is not nice, is nasty, is toxic (after he did most of the talking on describing his mother’s behavior), but instead that he thinks she suggests that we can live separate life while stays married?!?!

I felt so hopeless. After his several accusations on me being abusive, emotional, I believe he is trying to draw parallels between my MIL and me. I felt that if I do also have NPD and am abusive, he really should stay away from me. He is in complete denial of the possibility that his mom has been mentally ill all along and refused to read even the cover of all the NPD/BPD books I bought.

All I want to ask is, how do you manage to want to stay in this painful and long denial phase without seeking for divorce?

Goodness you are in a difficult situation with a young baby and all this happening.

4 sessions is not very long with the therapist. I saw a marriage therapist for 3 YEARS. Your husband is only just being made to face his mother’s behaviour by the therapist and this is going to take time. By accusing you of similar behaviour to his mother he is choosing to blame and attack someone who it is safer to blame. It feels psychologically safer to argue with a spouse than a parent, especially an abusive parent. This is called projection. Hold firm to your sense of yourself.

You can be separate in terms of how you handle your MIL. In that respect the therapist is correct. If yoru husband wants a relationship with her even from a distance he can. You can’t control his feelings for his mother so don’t try. You can remain in no contact and he can have a level of contact that works for him.

If his parents lived separately under one roof your husband may consider this normal and the solution to marriage difficulties. He needs to be shown how to work through differences, and so do you. If you love this man and he treats you well, try to find common ground where you support your relationship and child which are the most important things, and don’t expect him to go no contact if he doesn’t want to. You may never see things the same way but you should be able to find some understanding and respect for each other’s position.

Consider letting him visit his family alone with your child, it seems extreme to ban him from visiting all his maternal relatives just because you don’t want to see her.

Thank you for your response! Because he has never done the night duty with baby (ie take the monitor to bed, or share the room with baby) and he is a light sleeper, so he suggested I go with him but sleep with baby at night in a hotel while he sleeps in his mom’s new house! While he will pick the kid up in the morning and drop him off before bedtime. Am I just a nanny/night nurse or what… Moreover, I am banned from even meeting his dad and his girlfriend because it’s a package deal?!?! During our previous visits before we got married, we always had to sleep in different rooms – he slept in the room right next to his mom while I slept on a cot in his mom’s computer room where she went in and out as she pleased. I somehow did that for 5 excruciating Xmas visits and still wanted to marry him! Anyway the therapist clarified her points (not living parallel life; try to find common grounds rather than differences, etc) to us and hopefully he picked it up this time. We will discuss in details how to prep for the trip and all that in the coming sessions…. Oh man, what an emotional roller coaster ride! I feel like I am hanging on just for our son. If I file for divorce, then my MIL will grab the chance to ruin my son’s life/relationship with me for sure.

Hi, I came across your blog and am very thankful. My narc MIL is actually my husband’s stepmother, who married his father a few years ago. Thankfully, my DH’s mother is not this way and she and I have a good relationship, however, she lives in another country, along with other family members I get along with. So that leave his father who lives in the same city we do with his nightmare of a wife.

Reading the posts about the wedding hijacking, really rang true for us. SMIL never really acknowledged our engagement and she was hands off, never offered to help. Her friend and she caused huge drama at our wedding. On the day of, couldn’t even bring a card or come up to me and say hello, or introduce herself to my family. She kept to people she knew and went off and got drunk.

Following that, my DH confronted her in a sit down meeting and she got overly defensive. No empathy, didn’t take responsibility, gaslighting. I did write a list of things of what went wrong and how I was made to feel (shunned, ignored, disrespected) and was met with silence. I wrote a forgiveness note to her and also met with silence. I tried to extend an olive branch following the wedding, also silent treatment. Then recently, I noticed she had unfollowed me on all social media except Facebook.

I had been abused as a child and my therapist pointed out the effect of the narc’s actions, as well as my husband’s passivity and inaction, were cutting into my deepest wounds — that is, that I “wasn’t worthy of love.” Brought me back to being five years old again. This whole ordeal has lasted six months so far, but I’m hoping we can steer the ship towards a healthier course for our marriage. At my lowest point, I was contemplating suicide because of all this. How effed is that? When your wedding causes you to think about that?

Moving ahead with a lot of therapy, I am conscience of protecting myself. I have blocked her off all social media and any immediate ties of friends or employers, circle of friends she has to my husband. No contact. My DH and I are having discussions about how to proceed – I will not deny he has to maintain a relationship with her to see his father, who is weak-willed. But she is not getting near me ever again. Nor any children we have. After seeing the damage she caused at our wedding, I will never allow her to wield that kind of power on our special days in our lives.